Review: HAVIT HV-KB366L Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

It’s been a while since I actually went out of my way to purchase a keyboard, in fact, this may be one of the first times I actually invested in the often overlooked computer peripheral. For the casual computer user upgrading their computer’s keyboard may not top the list of items for their next computer upgrade project, and frankly, it wasn’t on my list either.

It wasn’t until some friends convinced me that I had even considered purchasing a mechanical keyboard. So I took to the Internet, looking for a mechanical keyboard that would fit my needs. Needless to say, there were a lot to choose from and each one had a smorgasbord of features and looks. Many would claim to be mechanical, but in reality, they were just mechanical like.

My search eventually led me to HAVIT’s RGB backlit mechanical gaming keyboard model HV-KB366L, I found it over on Amazon for $60. For that price I was a bit skeptical of what kind of product I was getting as most of the keyboards I looked at were priced much higher than that. I did see others that were cheaper than this one, but this seemed to be the happy medium – it was also one of the only ones in that price range that also offered a customizable RGB backlight.

The first thing I noticed when I got the keyboard was its weight and feel, it seemed as though it was built like a tank. This may be the case for most mechanical keyboards, but this was my first, and I was really impressed. The keyboards Aluminum top housing, metal base, and gold-plated USB interface contribute to its almost 3lbs weight – most stock keyboards are around 1lbs.

The typing experience is definitely quite different when you go from a cheap membrane keyboard to a mechanical keyboard. This keyboard is loud, each time you press a key it definitely has a “clicky” sound. The keyboard uses Outemu/Gaote Blue switches, which mean they are loud and “clicky” – it seems as though these would be equivalent to the popular Kailh Blue switches. It did me take a short while to get accustomed to, but I quickly became fond of hearing the clicks as well as the tactile feel of each key press. In the end, I really embraced the typing experience that the mechanical keyboard gave me – each key feels precise – I like the feeling of confirmation each time I press a key.

As for the backlit, I was surprised how much I actually enjoyed messing with this feature. The keyboard has multiple backlit modes to include, solid rainbow mode, breathing rainbow mode, lasting single color (7, green,magenta,yellow,aqua,white,red, and blue), breathing single color, seven color breathing (one color each time), one click zone lighting mode, and marquee. It is easy to cycle through all these modes, you simply press the Fn key plus the Backlit key and it will change to the next mode. The Fn key plus the arrow keys control brightness in the single color mode as well as marquee direction and breathing mode speeds. There really are a lot of backlit options to choose from, but I tend to stick with bright single color modes as I find it more pleasant on the eyes.

There really isn’t much more that I can say about this keyboard other than the fact that I really like it. For the price, I really feel as though this mid-range mechanical keyboard more than met my expectations. It’s built well, does not feel cheap, and has just about every feature that more expensive keyboards have.